Water access rights / cooperation between outdoor activity organisations?

[Paul_B]

So we're in the stage of a potential review of access to the outdoors again. BCU are talking about access to water, to clean water, etc. That's along with joining the BMC and the ramblers in presenting to the all parliamentary committee on outdoor access.

Do you think that the water access will be dropped again as too hard to sort out like last time? Or are we in a new climate where things like open water swimming, fitness for health and other more modern matters and thinking will mean that access to water gets a fair consideration?

Please, this is not meant to be political in conventional ways.

 

[Glow_worm]

Oo-err. Last time I entered a discussion like this I was accused of being a radicalised student with no idea of the countryside and rural life. But I'll risk joining in again.

I'm personally hopeful- the public dissatisfaction with the state of the rivers seems to keep growing and there is a lot of pressure on the government. Open water swimming continues to grow in popularity, paddleboarding was a bit of a fad especially during/after the coronadisease thing but still remains fairly popular. The water access could be some easy points scoring in comparasion to tackling the water pollution, but it needs to be well thought out or it could easily be more trouble than it is worth and end up being revoked.

And of course, public access to more of the countryside would be great- along with education and a change of attitude. I know the possibility/impossibility of this has been done to death here before, but times do move on and society and attitudes do change.

I'm involved in farming. I've never watched the staged, scripted entertainment program 'Clarksons Farm' but I do feel the effects- it has done an immense amount of good in terms of public understanding and appreciation of farming. The public attitude change has been enormous. Now we just need something similar but slightly different to educate and foster an interest in responsibly enjoying wider access to the outdoors, it could be done.

Attitudes are changing. I have chatted to several large landowners who are aware of this, realise they are not particularly popular anachronisms living in the last throes of the feudal system and know things will be changing, like it or not.

 

[Broch]

Selfishly I would prefer the situation to remain unchanged. The reality is if access to our rivers was made 'officially' public we would have very few quiet rivers for us to enjoy. As it stands, I can canoe many places and not see another person. Do I have a right to? well that is the unanswered and argued question but, so far, I have not had any serious objections.

Then there's the issue of cost - I pay a fee to use British navigations and cover my insurance, anglers pay (high) fees to fish the rivers; how much is the general public prepared to pay for access?

 

[Chris]

Selfishly I would prefer the situation to remain unchanged. The reality is if access to our rivers was made 'officially' public we would have very few quiet rivers for us to enjoy. As it stands, I can canoe many places and not see another person. Do I have a right to? well that is the unanswered and argued question but, so far, I have not had any serious objections.

Then there's the issue of cost - I pay a fee to use British navigations and cover my insurance, anglers pay (high) fees to fish the rivers; how much is the general public prepared to pay for access?

Genuine question here: why would anyone need to pay for access to use/navigate the rivers?

I assumed the proposal is that we’d get similar access rights to waterways like we have with public footpaths or other Access land.

 

[Broch]

Because everything carries a cost. Why should the tax paying public pay for a minority to use the rivers (or any other part of the countryside). Wherever the public go there is a cost - a cost of access, a cost of clearing up the mess, a cost of accident and damage liabilities, a cost of facilities.

In my view we should be charging for people going up Yr Wyddfa or other over-visited and trashed areas. People have zero respect for anything they don't pay for.

There are so many visitors to places like Pistyll Rhaeadr now (because of social media influences) that the roads in the area are so blocked that locals cannot move about, can't get on with their work, and have no peace. People regularly block drives and picnic in private gardens and worse! The amount of rubbish and litter that's left behind every weekend is unbelievable.

Before people come out into the country they should pay a fee and complete an access and behaviour test! After all, we now have to pay a fee to go into cities in our diesel vehicles OK, that's a bit tongue in cheek, but people living in the villages and working the land are so incensed at times that many are serious about such ideas.

Rant over

 

[Chris]

I’d prefer it if waterways had the same access rights as footpaths and Access land, and those who abuse it and ruin it are dealt with/prosecuted. We spend far too much time just banning things and stopping people from doing things in this country rather than just dealing with the idiots who ruin it for the rest of us. I do see your point that this costs money though, and I’d be happy for taxes to be spent helping to solve this problem. Though I don’t think that conversation can go much further without it getting necessarily political.

Fingers crossed the end result is more access for the public. As @Glow_worm says, times and attitudes do seem to be changing. Fingers crossed our overall social attitudes change as well, and social contracts are restored.

 

[Pupers]

If you have seen our recent local news regarding the trashing of Dartmoor, you would simply ban ALL public access. As for prosecuting these low life who abuse it and ruin it………Dream on, it will never happen!

 

[nigelp]

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[nigelp]

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[Broch]

Exactly. We pay for a lot of it anyway in one form or another. Deal with the minority and let things work themselves out. Otherwise the strength of feeling will lead to more mass trespass events and/or folk will just get out and do what they like anyway.

It already is, but in the opposite way to what you're thinking. Locals are fed up to the back teeth and will start acting as there seems no one in authority has either the interest, manpower, or money to deal with it. You're not the one waking up to more s**t in your garden. There is no control over what you call the minority but we see as the majority of people coming out to the countryside.

I honestly believe that we, as in participants on this forum, are in the minority in how we view the land and how it should be treated - most people don't give damn as long as they have a nice day.

 

[Pupers]

………or folk will just get out and do what they like anyway.

They already are.

We need a system similar to US National Parks for our National Parks, pay to enter, rules and laws are well publicised and ENFORCED by Rangers who have EXACTLY the same powers as a Police Officer, and have no fear in enforcing. Believe me it works, give a US Ranger lip when they ask you to pick up rubbish, or pack up and move on, it’s cuffs, equipment seized and a hefty fine. All our Rangers get is abuse and threats of violence. We are just so weak.

The female Ranger that was interviewed on the news last night looked at her wits end, and close to tears, I felt genuinely sorry for her. Who would do that job nowadays, it used to be an idyllic and a much sought after career………I know!

 

[Glow_worm]

A quick google suggests Dartmoor National Park is something of the order of 368 square miles. Just how many of those square miles have been affected? Weigh up the cost of this compared to the benefits of the local area brought by tourism. It's the same story elsewhere in the countryside, and has been at least since the surge in tourism in Victorian times- some hotspots recieve the bulk of the damage, usually beauty spots or places within the easiest reach of towns. This will always be the case, and has nothing to do with the question of wider access. It's only going to get more intense, the population of this country has increased enormously and will continue to do so.

I don't think in reality greater access to land or rivers will make it more difficult to find secluded places either. As always, the majority will head to places geared up to it, with facilities, or within easy reach, or what is currently big on social media. Certainly opening up access to much more land and water will take some pressure off hotspots which can only be a good thing, but there will always be more than enough backwaters to find isolation and solitude.

Perhaps in a rose-tinted fantasty of the 1950s little boys wore shirts and ties and sat to elbows-off-the-table for supper, were seen and not heard and were honest and hard working and respected their elders and betters. And nowadays everything has fallen apart and the world is rubbish. But time rolls on and anachronists with attitudes from decades ago will get left behind. The problem isn't going to go away, so rather than sticking heads in sands with 'it won't work' or 'it will be a disaster', 'ban town people from the countryside' comments, some constructive thinking and even action would be a lot more useful.

-There are more and more people.
-There is a limited amount of land and inland water accessible.
-There will be increasing pressure on it.
-There is increasing pressure for more land and water to be made accessible and it's likely this will happen in the near future.

How can we educate and change public attitudes?

 

[Broch]

Constructive thinking is 'pay to enter' because the 'head in the sand' attitude of just saying 'open it up' is not working, will not work, and is causing environmental issues at the very time we need to be protecting it most. For me, the land, nature, biodiversity, species richness, lack of pollution in all its forms... all come first before human need.

 

[slowworm]

Well, owning a small strip of stream frontage and caring about the wildlife in and around it we, as a country, need to do far more to improve the quality of water. Also being in a mainly private water and drainage area the problems are not down to those evil water companies but down to the public bodies such as the councils and land owners such as farmers and domestic dwellings. And, frankly, hardly anyone cares.

I would also say there's too many people and bodies that are meant to enforce the laws but either don't know them, can't be bothered enforcing them or even go out of the way to break them themselves. The council for example is meant to stop people polluting water courses but drains heavily polluted water into them itself.

There also seems to be conflicting advice and many of the old laws don't seem to be fit for purpose these days. For example, the council pointed out a branch had become lodged in our stream (it had washed down from land above us). When we spoke to them they couldn't tell us what to do about it or explain why they raised it but they sent a leaflet telling us it had to be removed. A month or so after removing it we then discovered land owners above us has received thousands of pounds in government grant money to put logs in the stream. I

I'm not sure we need any more poorly thought out laws.

 

[Pupers]

Well, owning a small strip of stream frontage and caring about the wildlife in and around it we, as a country, need to do far more to improve the quality of water. Also being in a mainly private water and drainage area the problems are not down to those evil water companies but down to the public bodies such as the councils and land owners such as farmers and domestic dwellings. And, frankly, hardly anyone cares.

I would also say there's too many people and bodies that are meant to enforce the laws but either don't know them, can't be bothered enforcing them or even go out of the way to break them themselves. The council for example is meant to stop people polluting water courses but drains heavily polluted water into them itself.

There also seems to be conflicting advice and many of the old laws don't seem to be fit for purpose these days. For example, the council pointed out a branch had become lodged in our stream (it had washed down from land above us). When we spoke to them they couldn't tell us what to do about it or explain why they raised it but they sent a leaflet telling us it had to be removed. A month or so after removing it we then discovered land owners above us has received thousands of pounds in government grant money to put logs in the stream. I

I'm not sure we need any more poorly thought out laws.

I spent 34 years protecting the environment, never heard of the council having the duty of stopping people polluting water, EA,or polluting it themselves. You would have no obligation to remove a branch that had lodged in your stream, unless it is “main river” As for your upstream neighbour receiving thousands of pounds of grant money to put logs in the stream! Sorry.

 

[Glow_worm]

Constructive thinking is 'pay to enter' because the 'head in the sand' attitude of just saying 'open it up' is not working, will not work, and is causing environmental issues at the very time we need to be protecting it most.

And who is going to take my money and give me an entry ticket for the public footpath which runs behind my house? Or the twenty acres of access land it leads to?

How is opening up access to the countryside a 'head in the sand' attitude? I'm suggesting that is what obviously needs to be done, along with a a fresh take on encouraging responsible use. My head in sand comment refers to those those who will sit there moaning it won't work while it happens around them, or at best coming up with ideas seemingly from the middle of the last century like charging entry to national parks hundreds of square miles in area, or handcuffing litterers....

There seems to be an enormous lack of continuity in this thread, the same as when this subject was last discussed. A large, famous open landscape bordered by towns and within easy reach of a city is misused in some locations.... Occasional flytipping occurs on land alongside roads.... why should that have any bearing on whether chalk hill grassland in Sussex or the Marlborough Downs becomes right to roam?

 

[stonepark]

Everyone should demand removal of EA Fishing Licences if general public is given access to water ways in England & Wales.

 

[Chris]

Everyone should demand removal of EA Fishing Licences if general public is given access to water ways in England & Wales.

I’m not sure that is comparing apples with apples, though. For example people are not allowed to shoot/hunt on Access land without appropriate permission. In terms of managing fish populations and protecting spawning seasons and the like it does at least serve a purpose beyond “I don’t want other people to enjoy the countryside like I get to enjoy it”.

 

[Broch]

OK, I'm out now - we're just getting back to name calling. Good luck with making it work.

 

[stonepark]

You do not require a "shooting licence" to shoot but you do need a shotgun\firearms licence for gun ownership and land owners permission.

You do need a "rod licence" to fish but you don't need a licence to own fishing rods but you do require the landowners owners permission.


If the general public are given free access to the detriment of fishing, you should at least be compensated for your now disturbed enjoyment which is no longer exclusive by not having to pay for a "rod" licence.

EA can be funded from general taxation just like everything else.

It's not as if the general public will be asked to pay a swimming\paddling\kayaking\rafting licence.... is it?

Fishing (rod) licences are an anachorism of control and taxation which have no place in the modern UK.